If you were wondering why bees popped up in the Labour party’s leaked manifesto this week, then here’s the answer.
Since 1900 about 20 bee species have become extinct in the UK and 35 more are now at risk.
According to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, between 1980 and 2010, 51% of pollinator species – including all bee species and wasps – became less widespread, with 36% showing a strong decrease.
The threats to the diversity of bee populations include climate change, loss of habitat and – evidence suggests – use of neonicotinoid pesticides.
But the extent to which neonics, as they are known, are the cause of bee population declines is contested between environmental campaigners, and farming and pesticide groups who say their use is vital for crop protection.
In 2013 the EU imposed a partial moratorium on three neonics – imidacloprid and clothianidin, produced by chemical company Bayer, and thiamethoxam, produced by Syngenta.
Until now the moratorium on neonics has only covered their use on flowering crops, which in the UK are predominantly oil seed rape.
Labour in its manifesto adopts a tougher position – one the EU itself is considering introducing. If elected the party would impose a ban all neonicotinoid pesticides, which would stop them being used on non-flowering crops such as wheat and sugarbeet.
One of the most recent studies on the impact of neonics on bees was published last year by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. It suggested their use correlated with “wild bee biodiversity losses at a national scale.”
The pesticide is coated on to the seeds of the plant, and acts systemically, seeping into the pollen and nectar. When ingested by bees it can attack the nervous system affecting the way they can feed, navigate and reproduce.
Dave Timms, senior policy campaigner for Friends of the Earth, says there is also growing evidence that the pesticides leak into the environment . Friends of the Earth has called for a total ban, to stop the pesticides being used on wheat and other non flowering crops.
This position is not without controversy. Prof Gary Bending, from the school of life sciences at Warwick University – who sits on the UK Expert Committee on Pesticides – said on Thursday any complete ban would be contentious. He said there was no evidence that their use on wheat and non flowering crops was harmful to pollinators (some 84% of the crops grown for human consumption need bees and other insects to pollinate them to increase their yields and quality).
“There are a lot of papers to suggest there may be impacts on bee populations (of neonics use on oil seed rape) but it is only correlation analysis. It doesn’t provide cause and effect. The big issue is – ‘Is the concentration of neonics that bees are exposed to toxic to them?’
“It would be quite contentious to extend the ban to other crops like wheat and sugarbeet. The point about all these decisions is they should be evidence based.”
